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Size of legislature-column-O'Neill
A good cut any way you slice it : Sunday, January 21, 2007, http://post-gazette.com/pg/07021/755267-155.stm : By Brian O'Neill, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "I read your editorial on reducing the state Legislature this morning,'' the e-mail began. " . . . and . . . it's an absolutely terrible idea.'' I love letters that begin with no dilly-dallying. You sense that, though the person is trying to be polite, he believes you to be a twit badly in need of the guidance only he can give. That the writer turned out be Daylin Leach, a member of America's Largest Full-Time State House of Representatives, only made his missive more welcome. When I looked up Mr. Leach on the House Web site, http://www.house.state.pa.us/, I learned he was a Democrat with an office in King of Prussia. I have fond memories of this Philadelphia suburb because my brand-new used Vette broke down there on my way to a newspaper job interview one hot July day in 1978. (That was a Chevette, but I've always said a Vette's a Vette.) As I recall, the good mechanic in King of Prussia did not rip me off on the voltage regulator, and so I have reason to trust those who hail from the area. But as I read Mr. Leach's arguments, he seemed to build my case, not his. Mr. Leach since has written an essay for our op-ed page, and I invite you to look out for that. His argument had better improve from the one he offered me, however, because his e-mail only bolsters the case to shrink the Pennsylvania General Assembly, America's most expensive statehouse. His central point is to consider a reasonable number of constituents for a lawmaker to represent. He figure about 62,000 people is reasonable for a House member and 250,000 for a senator. That's what Pennsylvania has today. He included a chart showing the numbers for each state, and he's right that dozens of states have lawmakers who answer to fewer constituents than Pennsylvania lawmakers do. But do we care about how things are done in Oklahoma, Arkansas or Vermont? We live in a highly populated state, with big urban centers as well as large rural areas. Pennsylvania is one of only eight states with at least 10 million people. We need to look at their statehouses. This chart uses figures supplied by Mr. Leach, which he says are based on state population figures from Wikipedia. The numbers indicate the size of lower house in each state legislature, and the number of people each lawmaker represents. I rank them as Mr. Leach did, by constituents per representative. The first column is the number of representatives in the lower house, the second the number of people each lawmaker represents, according to his calculation. California 80 455,719 Texas 150 156,719 Florida 120 150,749 New York 150 128,708 Ohio 99 114,678 Illinois 118 105,248 Michigan 110 91,779 Pennsylvania 203 61,284 Lawmakers in Arizona, New Jersey, Virginia, Colorado, North Carolina, Washington and Indiana also answer to more constituents than ours do, but why pad the list? Sticking only to the peer group of the eight largest states, it's clear Pennsylvania is out of whack. The proposal to shrink our statehouse is hardly revolutionary. Sen. John Pippy, a Republican from Moon, suggests going from 50 to 40 senators and from 203 representatives to 161. That 20 percent cut would leave each House member in a district of about 77,200 people. That would remain the smallest district in any of the eight most populous states. To put that another way, we'd still be paying for the biggest House in our peer group. Mr. Leach makes the dubious claim that this overhaul won't save much money, but with salaries, benefits, pensions, per diems, offices and staff, savings are considerable. Sen. Pippy believes the downsizing could save more than $60 million per year. This would not greatly increase the cost of campaigns or disenfranchise anyone. It would save tens of millions of dollars. Why can't Pennsylvania do it the way the big states do? Links * Size of legislature category:news coverage